Apathy and Apple Pie
by Saulie
Summary: Ryuk, who doesn't care, is in love with loopholes. Ryukcentric, not terribly coherent.


Ryuk doesn't care, and he doesn't see why this is such a bad thing. He's a shinigami. He's just human enough to work always in his own self-interest and inhuman by virtue of the fact that he is a _different species, _hello, this is not a hard concept. _Shinigami, _Death god, haphazard guardian of entropy's most delectable manifestation. If the death of mortals mattered to them they would not have control of it, obviously. The Cosmic Something does not invite that kind of disorder. But Ryuk, who doesn't care, is in love with loopholes.

_Laws are made to be broken—_ahh, the delicious scent of the new and different—the shocking—the revolutionary—like the crisp freshness of a new apple, savory and sweet and symbolic. The apple picked back in some allegory from the Days of Yore, that bestowed knowledge and with it dread mortality, that must have—if it had existed—tasted undoubtedly good. Ah, humanity. It always did rush to attach _portent _to things. Ryuk laughs at Raito, whom he likes for his intense ambition. Raito thirsts for change and for excitement, rather like Ryuk does—but he can't just do as he pleases, oh no, he has to attach this grand plan to it! Justice! Ha! Scheming and killing

for love of a Cause-? Yagami Raito came up with a brilliant excuse, and the only flaw is that—it's laughable—he honestly believes it.

That isn't boring at _all. _

_Humans are so interesting!_

Humans are so delusional.

_Humans are so peculiar! _

Humans are so fragile.

_Humans are so entertaining! _

And so stupid.

-

Ryuk relished the effect of his sudden 'appearance', knowing how he must look: magnificent and ghastly, apparition out of nowhere, now _here's _something you haven't seen before. He got an involuntary reaction from Yagami, and that was extra-special. Even before the Death Note the prodigy was rarely inclined to _shriek. _Aha. Poof, abracadabra; Yagami Raito is _seventeen _and Ryuk's catching up to time in age and apathy.

It takes future-Kira less than the others to lose the horrified _whatareyou_ stare for a hardened _whatcanyougiveme. _Good _time. _It's then that Ryuk wishes he could forgo the glance that would reveal Raito's lifespan because, hell, he wants to watch things play out. He already knows enough to make them all comparably ignorant—but then again, why not a little more, he can stand feeling a little more superior. He is rather used to that, hanging around here.

Raito's dangerous, but not to _him_. Raito's got to stop giving a damn if he wants to outsmart _this _Shinigami. And Ryuk keeps a close eye on that. Ryuk, being himself, can spot true indifference a mile away.

-

Ryuk wonders sometimes how Raito would take being told that he is an object of scorn in the world of the Death gods, getting such a righteous thrill out of something so commonplace as killing.

_Does he think he's the first one who's tried? _jeer the others, bored and cynical, powerful, wretched. Not enough energy to be affronted anymore.

_Think so, _replies Ryuk offhand.

_Ha. _

_He _is _the first one that's come this far. _

_True, but it's not like it matters. _

_He's killed one of us, though—_

_Albeit indirectly. _

Anyone idiotic enough to let themselves be erased in that way, for a human's sake, thinks Ryuk, has no reason to exist in the first place.

_That is…alarming…I guess…_

_Who cares? _

_I don't. _

_Tch. _

_'King doesn't. _

_Well, no. Then again, that's no surprise…_

_See you, _says Ryuk and goes back to the mortal world without a word, and he rather thinks—with a scorn less bitter and more satisfying—that he may end up being one of the last of the shinigami one of these days. No motivation. Just because something's not important doesn't mean it isn't interesting. Especially when so many are under the misconception that it _is. _

Raito, he reflects, probably would not care.

Raito is _convinced. _

…It's amusing, really.

-

Ryuk does not see what is so amazing about Amane Misa, to be honest. He just doesn't get it. He tried asking Rem but all the inapt adjectives fell flat, words he never thought he would hear a shinigami say, words he thought were frankly worthless outside of a certain context. Amane Misa is interesting in her own way, he supposes. Her fanatic devotion is a little out of the ordinary. But it's not _enough—_it's the same old thing, it's tedious, it's not _worth _it—and Ryuk prides himself on understanding all those pathetic little aspects of emotion but this is beyond him. He finds it faintly annoying. What's the big deal, anyway? The best part, in his opinion, is how futile it all is. Yagami Raito may fall someday, although he may just get killed before he has the opportunity, but all of Misa's sparkling smiles will not be the reason. Misa keeps halving her lifespan (oh hurray) and even while she has his eyes he knows she's going to die anyway. Probably by Raito's hand, even. Indirectly, of course.

Even _Misa _knows Raito is never going to love her. Which is funny, because they do share that obsessive focus. And, in the grand scheme of things, both of their goals are as supremely useless as the other--except…not, somehow.

Raito avoids love like the plague, because he isn't an idiot, and Rem and Misa don't, because they are.

The closest Raito's allowed himself to get to such a ridiculous idea, as Ryuk sees it, is something like…respect, maybe. And look at what Raito did to _that _one.

Everything fits together too much sometimes, dammit, it's going to get boring eventually.

Not yet, though.

It's not over yet.


End file.
